SELOC Successes

The biggest turnout of SELOC members since the last update was at our Summer Series event last Saturday in Burrs Country Park, Bury. Stephen Richards squeezed some interesting courses out of a difficult area to plan on as well as organising the whole thing. Results are now on the website.

Most prestigious event within range was the previous weekend on Chinley Churn, near Hayfield, where DVO staged the East Midland Championships. Michael Hood ran the Blue course and achieved 19^th place, while on Green we had John Nuttall in 40^th spot and Steve Round 59^th. Courses offered an interesting first half of fine technical navigation in a steep old quarry followed by compass work on the moor.

In between all these we had some midweek events from PFO, where Chris Taylor did well at Sunnyhurst Woods in Darwen taking 14^th place on the Maxi score, well ahead of Paul Turner and Steve Round, while daughters Florence and Abigail ran the Orange course where they finished 6^th and 7^th. The following night, new member Carmel Burke headed over to MDOC’s Brereton Heath event where she placed 5^th on the Light Green course.

Upcoming Events

Our next SELOC happenings are a couple of Wednesday evening Street Events on 21 and 28 July, one at Whitefield and the second at Bradley Fold, Bolton. Details are on the website but both will require pre-entry via Fabian4. Before then, you can still enter SYO’s sprint event on Sunday 12 July but be quick as entries close Friday, as they already have for BL’s event that same day on Angle Tarn Pikes in the Lake District. But it isn’t too late to enter AIRE’s urban events the following weekend, near Leeds – a double-header sprint on Saturday 18^th July and/or a full distance urban race on Sunday. EPOC offer a similar pair of events the following weekend, 25/26 July, with urban races in the Huddersfield area.

The next big event in the country is the British Sprint Championships weekend, right on our doorstep at Skelmersdale on 21/22 August. There’s a Relay on the Saturday then Individual Champs on the Sunday, and SELOC are playing a big part in the organisation alongside other NWOA clubs. It is an amazing area technically, and even if you don’t fancy a run then we’ll need a lot of help on the day so please try to keep the 22 August free. COVID constraints are still moving at the minute but we should know what roles we are asked to fill quite soon so watch out for a more specific request from Caroline in your Email soon.

Just think how many boxes you could fill on the SELOC bingo sheet with all those!

Other Activities

Double congratulations are due to Mark Seddon for successes just away from “normal” orienteering. Firstly for completing the Joss Naylor Challenge on 25 June almost 2 hours inside the target time for his age group. The Joss Naylor Challenge is a traverse of the Lake District from Pooley Bridge in the NE right across to Wasdale Head in the SW – 48 miles, 30 summits with 17,000 feet of climb, done in 13 hours 5 minutes! Amongst his support team were SELOCers Matt Driver, Chris Taylor and (lapsed member!) Josie Greenhalgh. Mark found low cloud on the tops so had plenty of chance to use his navigation skills, and was greeted at the finish by the founder of the Challenge, Joss Naylor himself.

Mark made good use of all that training the following weekend by then winning the solo Veterans class on the Fairfield course at the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon. Josie ran the same course in the pairs category, taking 15^th Veterans spot.